Heretofore, there has been proposed a bill recycle machine mounted to a cash automatic teller machine which is employed in a financial institution for example, the bill recycle machine including: a bill receiving and paying port into which a user casts the bills and then which sends out the bills thus cast to discharge the bills thus sent out to another user again; a bill discriminating unit for discriminating the bills; and bill carrying paths for passing the bill discriminating unit to carry therethrough the bills, the machine further including: recycle boxes for accommodating therein the bills, which serve for the payment as well as the receipt, to send the bills; a reject box for accommodating therein the received bills which are not accommodated in any of the recycle boxes, and the bills, which are not paid, of the bills which have been sent from the associated one of the recycle boxes and the received bills; and a charge and collection box for sending out the bills with which the associated one of the recycle boxes is to be filled and accommodating therein the bills which have been collected from the associated one of the recycle boxes.
This bill recycle machine, for example, is described in JP-A-10-188074.
The present invention relates in general to a bill recycle machine for dealing with bills and bill accommodating boxes for use in the same.
As the cash automatic teller machines have come into wide use, the need to further promote miniaturization, low cost and ease of use, while ensuring the conventional features and performance, has been increased more and more for the bill recycling machine, also referred to herein as a bill recycle machine. In particular, the need to realize the space saving for the place where the machine is installed has been increased, and also in addition to the miniaturization of the machine, there is desired the space saving for manipulation by a foreman such as the charge and collection of the bills made by a foreman. In addition, as for the installation place of the machine, in the case where the foreman manipulation space is defined in the back of the machine as in the automatic machine corner in financial institutions, the back manipulation type machine is desired, while in the case where the machine is installed in such a way as to just face the sidewall face of a shop, the front manipulation type machine is desired.
On the other hand, in terms of the reduction of a burden for the cash management imposed on a foreman and the improvement in the security, the charge and collection box, the recycle boxes, the reject box and the like are changed into boxes, i.e., detachable bill accommodating boxes which are in turn constructed in such a way as to be detachably manipulated.
In addition, as for the reject bills which have been generated when carrying out the dealings of receipt and payment of the bills with the bill recycle machine, there are the reject bills which have been generated due to the reason that the kinds of bills have not been able to be discriminated in the bill discriminating unit when carrying out the dealings of receipt and payment of the bills; the taking-forgotten bills and which have been generated when a user forgot to take out the paid bills; the charging reject bills which have been generated when charging the associated one of the recycle boxes with the bills from the charge and collection box for which a foreman has made the setting before beginning to carry out the dealings of receipt and payment of the bills; and the like. Thus, in terms of the management of the cash, these various kinds of reject bills can be desirably accommodated in the individual accommodating boxes, respectively. In such a manner, there has been the desired highly general purpose bill recycle machine which can cope with those individual needs.
In the above-mentioned bill recycle machine described in JP-A-10-188074, the bill recycle machine needs to be pulled out from the chassis of the cash automatic teller machine, and hence a large manipulation space is required.
In particular, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a bill recycle machine having: a bill receiving port and a bill paying port, or a bill receiving and paying port; a bill discriminating unit; a plurality of bill accommodating boxes; and bill carrying paths which pass through the bill discriminating unit to connect mechanically the bill receiving part and the bill paying port, or the bill receiving and paying port and the plurality of bill accommodating boxes to each other, wherein the plurality of bill accommodating boxes are carried vertically to be made the construction which can be manipulated from the front side and the back side, and the bill accommodating unit of at least one of the plurality of bill accommodating boxes is divided into a plurality of parts. In addition, the plurality of parts of the at least one of the bill accommodating boxes thus divided are used as the reject box, the charge and charge reject box, and the like which are in turn carried on the upper row with respect to the bill accommodating boxes which are not divided (the recycle boxes). In addition, the bill carrying path leading to the second row of the divided bill accommodating boxes is provided in such a way as to pass through the bill accommodating box of the upper row.
In addition, a bill accommodating box of the present invention includes: at least one bill approach port; path means for accommodating the bills, which have entered from the bill approach port, in the bill accommodating box; and a bill exhausting port for exhausting the bills, which have entered from the bill approach port, to the lower row, wherein the bills which have entered from the bill approach port are selectively taken in the bill accommodating box or are exhausted to the lower row.